1. Technical Field
The embodiments of the present invention generally relate to a system and method for restricting audio transmission based on driver status.
2. Background Art
With conventional automotive vehicles, one or more keys are often shared between any number of drivers (e.g., parent/teen, employer/employee, owner/valet driver, or fleet vehicle owner/fleet vehicle driver). In one example, the parents of a teenager (or young adult) that is old enough to drive may provide the keys of the vehicle to the teenager. The vehicle may be equipped with various safety and/or driver notification features that may be enabled/disabled via a user interface based on the driver's needs. However, in some circumstances, the parent may not intend to have the various safety and notification related features disabled by the teenager. The parent may enable the safety and notification features prior to allowing the teenager to drive the vehicle, however there is no guarantee that the teenager may keep the safety and notification features enabled while driving the vehicle. Conventional vehicles fail to give parents, or other primary drivers, the option of preventing teenagers that are eligible to drive or other such secondary drivers from disabling safety and notification features.
It is known that drivers can subscribe to various audio plans (e.g., satellite audio providers such as Sirius® or other suitable providers) so that drivers can access a multitude of channels than those typically offered by frequency modulation (FM) or amplitude modulation (AM) audio systems in the vehicle. In general, the Federal Communications Commission (FCC) regulates the content (i.e., subject matter) that is communicated over FM or AM based channels. However, for satellite audio, there may not be any type of regulation for adult based content. In some cases, the primary driver may deem such adult based content as unsuitable for the secondary driver.